Amazon’s ‘X-Ray’ feature expands to TV shows, with help from IMDb

Amazon’s ownership of IMDb, the widely used Internet Movie Database, might have been a head-scratcher or a novelty in years past. But all that data is becoming increasingly useful to the company, and an announcement this morning is the latest case in point.

Amazon is expanding its “X-Ray” feature to television shows, leveraging the IMDb database. The company originally launched X-Ray for movies last year.

This is the feature on Kindle Fire HD tablets that lets viewers tap the screen to bring up a box with more information about the actors in a particular scene, letting them click to find out more about each cast member.

The feature will be available for TV shows on Amazon Instant Video, starting with Justified, Downton Abbey, The West Wing, Sons of Anarchy, Falling Skies, American Horror Story, Grey’s Anatomy, Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Lost, Glee, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones.

X-Ray is also available for the Amazon Instant Video App on the Wii U console.